Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Districts of the United States, according to “An Act providing for the enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States;” Passed March the first, seventeen hundred and ninety-one.

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Third American edition of the First Federal Census carried out in 1790, a landmark record in the establishment of Federal powers. The Census was “designed to provide continuity between past and future and to adjust periodically the relative shares of power and resources among the various constituent elements of the population. That much the framers of the Constitution originally intended for the census. Population growth was already rapid in the eighteenth century. Americans knew from the outset that they were creating an experimental form of government that would have to handle social change systematically.” (Anderson p236)

Signed in print, on p. 3: “Truly stated from the original returns deposited in the office of Secretary of State. Th: Jefferson. October 24th, 1791” and preceded only by the 1791 and 1798 Philadelphia editions. Howes rates this printing “aa”.

Price: $350.00